have to give money in those states and get out the vote, and do ground game, or work those states. so that's wisconsin, it's michigan, it's pennsylvania. we know what it is. >> we do, certainly. you are a testament to every vote counting. you for joining me. the rachel maddow short show starts right now. >> thank you very much, my friend. >> and thanks for jordan home for joining us. today at the start of the day, the republican party's presumptive nominee was facing a deadline to put up a $460 million bond. million bond. york would start seizing his bank accounts and his properties pursuant to a huge fraud judgment that has been levied against him by the courts. he then got a surprise reprieve of that deadline this morningch the new york appeals said today

he can put up a smaller bond albeit $175 million. he said the deadline isn't today and he had an extra ten days to do it. they did not explain their decision but that is what it today the republican party presumptive nomy also learned the first of his four impending trials startsr april 15th. this is the case he faces dozens of charges related to falsifying records of his business to cover up illegal contributions to his presidential campaign. that was today as well. also today the u.n. security council passed a resolution calling for a cease-fire in gaza. which resulted in israel calling off planned meetings with planned officials. today the ceo of boeing announced he's resigning and everyone pronounced him lucky he

was just stepping down and not falling from a fuse lodge door someone forgot to screw closed. today the rapper sean combs had his homes searched for officials. he's been accused of sexual assault and sex trafficking in public forums. but today federal officials searched his homes. today "the new york times" reported that when brazil seized the passport of that country's former president and started arresting his aides to try to mount a coup to keep him in power after he lost re-electionthality former president, jair bolsanaro, fled to another country's embassy. he fled to the embassy of hungary to apparently get asylum from the hungarian government and viktor orban so his own country's police forces could not arrest him in brazil. each one of those stories is

incredible on its own terms, right? there's a huge important case going to be argued tomorrow so radical and life changing for american women and comes from such a bizarre place in the law it almost can't be overstated how important and strange it is. we've got a guest booked on that tonight. tomorrow supreme court oral argument on that case. i'm excited to talk about. this is a huge day in the news all of which makes me all the more flabbergasted, all the more bewildered that i have to start tonight with something else. but i have to start tonight with something else, so let me explain it my way in the hopes this maybe helps our overall undering of what has just

happened here. these are guys who live rent-free in my head. none of theirin faces will like be familiar to you. on the upper left that's a man who ran a fascist paramilitary group in the united states modeled on the ground shirts in germany,ir the storm troopers. pelley's group was called the silver shirts.ll pelley was their leader. he said he would be america's hitler, that he and his silver legion would get rid of h democracy the way hitler is running germany.rm william pelley mounted a run for president from the christian party. his run for president did not go well.r he got less than 2,000 votes total. go back to that group there, the foursome. on the upper right, probably never seen that guy either. his name is gerald l.k. smith. he was a fantastic speaker.

some people in his time said he was the best orator this country maybe had ever produced. gerald l.k. smith. he was a fascist. he called himself a christian nationalist. he said we needed a christian nationalist takeover to, quote, seize the government of the united states. he attacked fdr. he attacked president roosevelt for supposedly being too old and too infirm to stay in the job. gerald l.k. smith said about fdr, quote, we're going drive that cripple out of the white house. gerald l.k. smith also ran for president. he ran for president on the america first party ticket, and like william dudley pelley, he also got less than 2,000 votes. go back to that foursome again. okay. let's do lower left. you might recognize him, maybe. his name is charles coughlin. he was a right-wing radio phenomenon, maybe the most

influential and widest reaching american media figure ever in the history of american television and radio. father coughlin was a fascist.y he was in love with the franco dictatorship in spain. he invited franco to submit articles to his newsletter. he translated goebels line by line and put his own byline on it. he knew he couldn't be president himself because he was a priest, maybe, but mostly because he was canadian. so coughlin decided to arrange effectively a puppet candidacy of a no-name congressman. but everybody knew if you voted for that no-name congressman, it would really be father coughlin behind the scenes running the ly show. that presidential run organized by father coughlin, it did not work either. he did his best, and he was a huge media figure at the time. but in that presidential run, he got less than a million votes nationwide. now back to the foursome again. the last one, lower right-hand side.ne his name is general george van

horn moseley. ever heard of him? moseley? his deputy chief of staff of the u.s. army at one point, and he conspired with fascist groups in the united states that were plotting a violent overthrow of the u.s. government whereupon his deal with them is after they overthrow the government, they would install him as the new american dictator. and general moseley traveled the country advocating for the l vo american system of government to be overthrown.hr he testified to congress about it. he explained that if he got into the white house, first thing he would do is effectively to empto the government out, to fire the entire government. he'd have to, because deep state. commies everywhere. general george van horn moseley's plan did not work out either. i mention he was a retired general. as a retired general, the u.s. army told him he of course was welcome to continue barnstorming the country, offering himself as america's fuhrer, but if he did

so, the army would no longer feel obligated to keep him on their payroll as a retiree. so general moseley, would you like to keep your army pension? or would you like to keep calling for the overthrow of the american government in order tov install yourself as a dictator? you can have one, but not both. which will it be? general moseley decided hard call, but let's go with the pension. he took his pension. a condition of keeping his pension would be that he would stop talking about overthrowing the government and become america's dictator. so it didn't work for him to take over either. i bring this up because these guys live rent-free in my head, and i am aware. i am very well aware that in our country, there has been no shortage of creeps like this. there has been no shortage of american men who thought they

would make an excellent dictator of the united states, and they were delusional enough to think the rest of us would like that too. that we would put them in that position if we could. they all thought that you could stoke enough frustration in the united states. you could get people divided against each other enough, you could get people het up enough and frustrated enough with the complexities and frustrations of democracy that you could convince people to get rid of it, you know. you tell people it's an emergency enough, eventually you tell people it's time to break glass in case of emergency. and the message of what they'res offering instead is always some variation of the same theme. imagine a new america where thank god there is finally a man in charge, and he's finally going get stuff done, and we'll

all be unified for once behind this leader, because he really loves america, and he is going to finally once and for all fix our problems by getting rid of all the things that are stopping us from fixing our problems. and if you're against the leader, maybe you're one of e those problems, and maybe we'lle have to get rid of you. but otherwise, the rest of us will all be so unified, right. this has this clean simplicity to it. things will be efficient for once. there won't be an opposition political party, this useless congress will stop standing in the way. they'll either become irrelevant or they'll be ignored, or if need be, they'll be abolished. get them out of the way. they don't do anything any way.t the judicial system. that will no longer be a constraint on the country or on the leader who is trying to get stuff done. all of these lilliputian strings will no longer hold gulliver down, right. the leader will finally be able to lead. the judicial branch will also come to heel. it will do as its told, or it

will be ignored or abolished, if that's what it takes, just like congress. the government will be emptied out and replaced with people loyal only to the leader, just so we can get stuff done. you don't want that bureaucracy hanging around, you don't want that deep state. we'll get rid of everybody. we'll put in people who are all part of a leader's program. it will be so clean, so efficient, so simple. politics will finally get out of the way. aren't we exhausted of politics? let's not have politics anymore. all this deep state nonsense. all these lesser institutions, these lesser people, these would-be competitors who lost tr the leader. they will get out of the way. they will be gone so we can be unified. so we can finally get something done, so we can be great again. it's always the same thing. it's always some version of that same sales pitch, right. and there has been no shortage of guys who have preached that to the people of the united states. you go back and look, you find there are not just no shortage of them, there is a surprising number of them who really did

think they could persuade the country to vote for that kind of change. vote to install somebody like them in power whereupon the whole american system of government will be done away with so we can have this new system instead under them. they all thought i'll just give people a chance to vote for me instead of the american system of government. all run for president.r and they all failed miserably. but they all live rent-free in my head to this day, because while we have had a succession of dudes with these aspirations live and among us in the united states of america, they are all now forgotten for a reason. there is a reason when i put up those pictures, none of those guys looked familiar. there is a reason they have been mostly lost to history. and it's this. did you catch what i said about how those guys were actually trying to get into the white house?ge how those guys thought they were going to get to be leader of the united states? william dudley pelley, he was the presidential candidate of the christian party. what's that? gerald l.k. smith, he was the

presidential candidate of the america first party. what's that? father charles coughlin, the puppet presidential campaign he ran was for the union party. what's that? general george van horn moseley, the group he tried to get to put him in the white house was called the american nationalist confederation. huh? what are those things? none of them are still parties or organization. some of them don't even have wikipedia pages to this day. so, yeah, we've had a lot. we've had plenty of would-be authoritarians who wanted to do away with the american system of government and make us an authoritarian country instead. but they tried to accomplish that by inventing or latching ot to random parties and movements you have never heard of and that never went anywhere. none of them ever attached themselves to something big and

powerful with institutional capacity and gravitas and historic heft. none of them ever attached themselves to something like the republican party. and at first, real estate developer donald trump didn't either. do you remember that his first attempt to run for president was with a different party? year 2000, the reform party. remember that? no? nobody does. and the reason we don't remember it is because it's about as memorable as any other pointless no-name third party vanity campaign. whether it's radical and revolutionary and wants to get rid of the american system of government or not, it's almost beside the point. who cares, right? it's irrelevant. even though we have had a thousand and one would-be

authoritarian leaders in this o country, guys who plotted and promised to overthrow the u.s. system of government, we have never before had someone with that ambition who also has the use of one of our two major political parties to get him there. and so it's a different kind of danger, right? it's a different kind of danger. it's dangerous because it means the power and the institutional heft and the legitimacy of a massive american political institution is now being brought to bear on this project that has always before now been, yes, radical and worrying and sometimes quite violent, but it wasn't going to win. what has always been a fringe project before now in america today, if the polls are to be believed, it's now a cause and a candidate that is likely to win. and it's not because the american people have never heard that sales pitch, right? it's not because we the american people have never heard the siren song of a guy proclaiming the virtues of a new america s where there is finally a man in

charge and nothing is going to get in his way. we've heard this a million times from a million crazy-eyed weirdos, right? it's only likely to win now because of the republican party, because people in so-called normal politics have laundered it, have laundered this sales pitch to make it seem like a ak good choice. they've led their own credibility to even the craziest parts of it. they didn't just stick around for the policy. they didn't just stick around for the potentially normal parts of it, they stuck around and pitched in to help when push came to shove, when we got to the violent part. the person who is the head of the republican party during donald trump's time in office an and during his effort to throw out the election result and stay in power any way, and during his effort to run for election again after having done that is ronna romney mcdaniel. and she pitched in and helped.

she helped set in motion the tc part of the plot that involved sending fake trump electors to congress from states that trump did not win so republicans in washington could use those fake, fraudulent elector slates to contend that maybe trump did win those states, even though he didn't. and don't believe me on that. there she is on page 23 and page 27 of the federal indictment charging donald trump with conspiring to defraud the united states. there is her personal appearance in this scene of the crime as alleged by the u.s. justice department in this ongoing criminal case. in michigan, where the fake electors are themselves now on trial, she told the state of michigan in writing explicitly, do not certify the election results. the detroit news has reported that with donald trump on the phone with her, she directed

michigan election officials to not certify the vote. she told them, quote, do not sign it. we will get you lawyers. she pitched in. she was part of the project.in and what was the project? it was to use the power of the republican party, republican officials in the states, republican office holders in washington, the national republican party that she runs to use the party's power to reject election results to take over the government and hold power by other means. and this project is now ongoing, right. now the project is to tell the american people that those efforts are on the 2020 election were righteous. that 2020 election, it wasn't okay. those election results were not correct. we shouldn't believe american elections. we shouldn't believe american elections are real elections. american election results should not be seen as real.ct they should not be respected. that's the project now.d it didn't work to overthrow the

government last time; but as long as you can build on that first effort, as long as you can keep up the anti-election mythology, then you are priming your people, you're priming the american public to not accept the results of the next election either. you're telling them that they'rg going to need to take power by other means, because the election isn't going to be how we do it anymore. you're also priming people, honestly, to vote to give up this supposed democracy we have because what good is it any wayt all right. so what are we really losing if we decide we're going lose this? who cares.we elections are fraudulent here any way. who cares if we give them up. ronna mcdaniel has been pitching in on that, continuing to say since 2020 that that election wasn't right, that the american public should know that that vote wasn't real, and that is a message not only about 2020, but about this next election. and about whether or not elections should matter at all, and whether we should bother having them at all. the republican party getting

behind that message is a choice. i mean trump himself is going to do what he wants to do. we've always had guys like trump. sometimes they wear ridiculous little uniforms. we've always had guys like that. we've never before had a big storied, important american political institution embrace a guy like that.st even when it came to t overthrowing the american system of government. and in a time like this, it's hard, right. this is a challenging and worrying time. republican officials have to figure out whether they're going to stand up for the american system of government or not.p republican politicians, congress has to decide if it's going to assert its own relevance. they're going to assert their own independence, their own role in the government, stand up for our system of government, or

not. judges and prosecutors have to decide if they're going to be braver than they ever thought they'd have to be in this job. they have to decide whether they're going stand up to the threats and the violence. and nevertheless, be independent, be fearless, stand up for their own independence, and thereby stand up for our system of government.y regular citizens have to decidee if we're going to brave the threats and the violence to stay involved in politics. to work for campaigns, to volunteer as election workers, despite all the threats, all the attacks, all the violence, to stand up for our system of or government. and then there is the press. which is both reporting on all of this and is also a part of it. because just as a strongman needs to control the judicial branch or get rid of it, needs to control the congress or get rid of it, needs to control the political opposition or get rid of it, what the strongman most

desires before all of that, the necessary precursor to all of that is to control the free press, or get rid of it. and you know, in the press, we do not take it personally when we get attacked, when they say they want to put us on trial anc execute us for treason. we don't take it personally. but we do defend ourselves as an institution. not because we're personally offended by the way that we're treated, but because a free andt uncowed press is necessary for our democracy. a free and uncowed press is part of our system of government. we stand up for ourselves as a way of standing up for our country and for our constitution. the first amendment to which makes it possible for us to exist at all. and so i want to associate myself with all my colleagues both at msnbc and at nbc news who have voiced loud and principled objections to our

company putting on the payroll someone who hasn't just attacked us as journalists, but someone who is part of an ongoing project to get rid of our system of government. someone who still is trying to convince americans that this election stuff, it doesn't really work, that this last t election, it wasn't a real result. that american elections are fraudulent.ca because that argument, that is a necessary part that is the most necessary part of the overall project of getting us as americans to give up on this election stuff. because wouldn't we rather have a real man in charge any way, somebody who could really get some stuff done. if only we can clear away all the things in his way.

we have a long history in this country of forgettable men telling us that we need a new system of government where everything is under their control and politics is over, and this new strongman way of government is going to make ew america great again. we have had a lot of these guys. but our generation's version of this guy has gotten a lot farther than all the rest of them. and why is that? he would have been as forgotten as all the rest of them had he not been able to attach himself to an institution like the republican party and had the leader of that party in his time not decide that she would abide him, she would help. she would help with the worst of it. it's my understanding that msnbc's leadership did not object to ronna mcdaniel being hired by nbc news when the matter first arose, but when the hiring was announced, and msnbc staff essentially unanimously and instantly expressed outrage, our leadership at msnbc heard

us, understood, and adjusted course. we were told this weekend in clear terms ronna mcdaniel will not be on our air. ronna mcdaniel will not be on msnbc. and i say that and give you that level of detail because there has been an effort since by other parts of the company to muddy that up in the press and make it seem like that's not what happened at msnbc. i can assure you, that is what happened at msnbc. ronna mcdaniel will not appear on msnbc, so says our boss since saturday. and it has never been anything other than clear. and i will also say if you care what i think about this, i will tell you the fact that ms. mcdaniel is on the payroll at nbc news, to me that is an inexplicable. you wouldn't -- you wouldn't hire a wiseguy, you wouldn't hire a made man like a mobster to work at a d.a.'s office,

right? you wouldn't hire a pick pocket to work as a tsa screener. and so i find the decision to put her on the payroll inexplicable. and i hope they will reverse their decision. and it's not about, you know, democratic party, republican party. it's not about partnership. it's not about right versus left. it's not about being a political professional versus some other kinds of person. it's not about being mean or nice to journalists. it's not about just being associated with donald trump and his time and the republican party. it's not even about lying or not lying. it's about our system of government and undermining elections and going after democracy as an ongoing project, right. and this is a difficult time for us as a country, and i think that means we need to be clear-eyed about the w implications of it. difficult times make for difficult decisions.

we are contending with something we've never had to contend with before. in the news business, yes, we s are covering an election, which we do all the time. but we're also covering bad actors trying to use the rights and privileges of the democracy to end democracy. the chief threat among them now is not the rioters and the kooks, but the slick political professionals who are turning their attention that election nt results aren't real and they 't shouldn't be respected. we are contending with this nowe not from william dudley pelley's brown shirt militias, right, bul from the multibillion massive political operation of one of the two governing parties of the united states of america. and that's new. and with our country up against something that daunting and that scary and that dangerous for the country, i think bad decisions will inevitably happen. mistakes will be made. but part of our resilience as a

democracy is going to be recognizing, us recognizing when decisions are bad ones. and reversing those bad decisions. hearing legitimate criticism, responding to it and correcting course. not digging in, not blaming others. take a minute. acknowledge that maybe it wasn't the right call. it is the sign of strength, not weakness to acknowledge when you are wrong. it is a sign of strength.gn and our country needs us to be strong right now.un we'll be right back.

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so it's february 28th. the county board of supervisors was holding one of its regular meetings. this was in arizona, maricopa county, arizona. and there were discussions about proposed zoning changes and a new irrigation district, and bringing certain roads into the county highway system. there was even a pet showcase for adoptable dogs, oh, hello. maricopa county is home to the city of phoenix. it's home to over 60% of the population of the state of arizona. there is a lot of local governance to cover at these board of supervisors meetings. but as this meeting approached the two-hour mark, something changed in the room that was definitely a vibe shift. you could see the supervisors looking around, starting to whisper to each other. they seemed to sense something was about to happen. and then chair abruptly adjourned the meeting, at which

point some version of pandemonium broke out. >> this meeting is now adjourned. >> sellers, running for the hills. >> we the people will have answers. >> you are being served! you are being served! you are being served. you are being served. >> you will go to the other side of this board. >> you are being served. >> we will vote in new officials. >> it shouldn't be like this. >> you are treasonous. >> you guys, it shouldn't be like this. >> william, william -- >> do your jobs! >> you are being served. >> this is where election denialism hits the road. this is what it looks like in real life. you can see in the video how the maricopa supervisors, they hustle out pretty quickly.

law enforcement blocks these people who yelling at them and jostling, jostling them. and if you're wondering what all the yelling is about, all shouting about treasonous and you are being served, after the supervisors left, one person in the crowd laid it all out. >> 12 signatures which means each individual person is liable for over $21 million just from this paperwork. if they don't resign within three days, they will be personally served with a writ and an opportunity again to rebut any one of our claims, which i'm making right now. none of them have signed an oath of office. none of them are bonded we the people. all of them are foreign governors acting as government. they are not our government. therefore, we will be serving them a writ with a waiver of tort. and if they still do not retort, we will be notifying the military. they can be hauled off to a military tribunal. i think we all know the penalty for treason. thank you. >> thank you, thank you. we'll be serving them with a wit, with a waiver of tort. they do not rebut, we will be notifying the military. they can be hauled off for

a military tribubal. we all know the penalty for treason. almost all of them are republicans. they're all foreign invaders who are now liable for millions of dollars because somebody yelled "you're being served." if they don't resign in minutes, the military will come and execute them. and however this might look to us watching it on video, for the maricopa board of supervisors, having a bunch of people rush the dais where they're sitting yelling that they're traitors and should all be killed is scary. here is how "the washington post" reported it. quote, the scene at the february 28th meeting terrified many county employees and reminded of what happened after joe biden won the county and with it arizona in the 2020 presidential race. back then, trump supporters used baseless claims of fraud to try to pressure or care elected leaders into changing the county's election results. after the 2020 election, you may

remember, this was the scene for days on end outside that county elections department when the votes were being tabulated there. mobs of often armed trump supporters gathering outside the building, yelling at the election workers inside. at one point, they surrounded one elections worker outside the building. that person had to be pulled out of the angry crowd by a sheriff's deputy. arizona has been a hotbed of election denialism ever since as epitomized by the circus of that bizarre arena audit of the 2020 election. the state's attorney general is closing in on a decision now whether to criminally charge the fake electors from arizona who signed forged documents after the 2020 election claiming that trump had won the state rather than biden. just today a man was sentenced to 2 1/2 years in federal prison for making repeated death threats in 2022 against katie hobbs, who was then arizona's top elections official and is now governor. the head of the u.s. justice

department elections task force had a press conference in phoenix today to drive home the message that threats against election officials will not be tolerated. they will be prosecuted, and you will go to prison. in arizona now, the man who's at the center of all this, the state's current top elections official is somebody who newly needs a bodyguard just to go to work every day. he joins us live here next. stay with us.

quote, in training poll

workers for this year's presidential election, the office of arizona secretary of state adrian fontes is preparing them for a series of worst case scenarios, including combat, coordinating active shooter drills for election workers, sending kits to county election offices that include tourniquets to stem bleeding, devices to barricade doors, hammers to break glass windows. arizona has been ground zero for election denial and threats and intimidation of election workers ever since the 2020 election. things do not seem to be getting better ahead of this next election. but this time at least state officials do know a lot more about what they're up against. joining us now is arizona secretary of state adrian fontes. mr. secretary, thank you so much for being with us. i appreciate your time. >> thank you so much, rachel, for having me. >> is it fair to say that things aren't better since 2020 in arizona, and that as we head towards this next election, you're expecting to see a continuation, or maybe even a worsening of some of the sorts of threats and craziness that we

saw in arizona a few years ago? >> well, i think in balance things are actually better. our elections officials are trained. they're more prepared. we know what to expect, for the most part. there are some new emerging wrinkles. but we've been here. we've seen that, and those pictures you showed of those armed crowds outside of the warehouse, that was my warehouse. that was my election in maricopa county in 2020. we got through that we got through 2022. we will get past 2024. and we will protect democracy. >> tell me some of the specifics of your planning. this is obviously a threatening environment, not just in terms of physical safety for you and your staff, but in terms of making sure the election can be carried out without being hindered by external forces. >> yeah, well, first the background. we've lost senior election officials in 12 out of our 15 counties here in arizona. but to shore up the load, we're making sure that everybody who

is coming in, most of whom really already were in elections at sort of the next level down positions, that they're prepared. and we're focusing on the fundamentals. but we're also adding in some augmented training, including some ai training like we had at a recent tabletop exercise. that's training that law enforcement and the military use to sort of role play, throw scenarios out there. we've also got some tiger teams from our office that are going out to make sure that our i.t. security systems are locked down. we have worked with homeland security at the state and federal level and cisa to shore up all of our physical and cyber security needs. but at the end of the day, it is fundamentals, fundamentals, fundamentals. and the folks who are running elections in arizona are ready. >> i know that the justice department had a press conference today in arizona in phoenix after the sentencing of a man sentenced to more than two years in federal prison after threatening your predecessor,

who is now the governor of the state. do you feel like the criminal law part of this obviously threats and intimidation are always illegal, let alone violence itself, do you feel like on the criminal law side of this that arizona is doing a good job at prosecuting this stuff and you have the support you need from the federal justice department to do what needs to be done? >> well, i've been openly critical of the department of justice and the fbi for not celebrating their wins in the courtroom enough to act as a deterrent against this sort of thing. and it looks like they're coming around a little bit. the press conference today really does show that accountability matters, and it's important that we let folks know that threats or violence against elections officials, look, at the end of the day, that's domestic terrorism, threats or violence for a political outcome is terrorism. and that's what's happening in america today. it's inexcusable.

and law enforcement at the federal and state level needs to step up not just their investigations, but promoting the convictions that have been had. so that folks understand clearly threatening election workers is not an american thing. it is criminal. acts of violence against election workers, election officials is also criminal. and we cannot have this kind of activity and maintain this civil society that we purport to love. >> it's a really interesting point about putting a spotlight and making sure the people know when these prosecutions happen and when they're successful. arizona secretary of state adrian fontes, i'm sorry that your job is the kind of job that requires a bodyguard now. i'm thankful for your service >> thanks, rachel. all right. we'll be right back. stay with us. stay with us flonase all good. also, try our allergy headache and nighttime pills.

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the united states supreme court is going hear oral arguments tomorrow in an incredible case, a case that will decide whether or not to severely curtail access to the abortion pill in this country. that's how most abortions are done in this country. the supreme court agreed to take up this case after a federal judge in texas effectively banned the use of one of the two pills that's used as part of medication abortion. research is overwhelmingly shown the abortion pill to be effective and safe. it was first approved by the fda more than two decades ago. but this texas judge, a trump appointee, a life-long anti-abortion activist, he ruled that the fda was wrong to approve this drug. i have to tell you, his ruling was not a monument to intellectual heft.

i'm not a lawyer, but i know it's a bad thing when your ruling relies on two studies that have since been retracted by their publisher. also, another quote, unquote study that pulled its data entirely from anonymous blog posts posted on an anti-abortion website. also, according to a brief filed by the aclu, the ruling also cited testimony from a person purporting to be a doctor who is not actually a doctor unless you're okay to make people call you doctor because you have a masters degree in theological studies. like i said, not exactly a model ruling. nevertheless, a republican heavy appeals court upheld parts of that texas ruling. we don't know what the supreme court is going to do in response, but today in a post-roe world, nearly two-thirds of abortion in this country are done medication. the court is going to real whether or not to severely restrict the abortion pill. it has almost unfathomable consequences for abortion rights and not just in parts of the

country that are hostile to abortion or have already banned it, but everywhere in the country. joining us now is nancy northup, she's the president and ceo of center for reproductive rights. thank you for being here. i appreciate you being here. thank you. >> thank you. >> we are used to thinking about abortion rights now in terms of the patchwork of states that have various laws either banning or allowing it. this case that's coming to the supreme court tomorrow is about medication abortion nationwide. this is a texas case that would essentially rescind fda approval for one of the drugs that's used in medication abortion, and it wouldn't just be for red states. it would be everywhere, right? >> yeah, it makes me think about, you know, when the draft opinion first came down and we read it and the center for reproductive rights litigated the dobbs case. and of course the line there from justice alito, we're going send this back to the states. this case puts the lie to that.

we're back in the supreme court less than two years later, and they are going to decide whether really important approval for medication abortion, and particularly, you know, the approval for it to be done by telemedicine, which has totally expanded the ability for people who live far from clinics, who would prefer to be at home to have a conversation by telemedicine and get the pills by mail. the fda has approved that as safe and effective. and that's what's on the line, among other things in this case that will be argued tomorrow in the supreme court. >> i know this is folly to ask, and you don't have to answer if you want, but what are you expecting the court to do here? everything i have read is that the underlying ruling, the district court ruling is so bananas that it would be unthinkable for them to side with that district court judge. that said, the appeals court did uphold some of what he was trying to do. so that makes it a little bit more of a wild card. what are you actually expecting?

>> i don't want to predict what the supreme court is going to do, but i want to make really clear to your viewers that there was no basis in law and fact, use pointed out in the district court's opinion, and there was no basis in law and fact in the very conservative fifth circuit decision. so there is only one right outcome on the facts of the law in the supreme court, and that is to uphold all of the agency decision making. this is for agencies, the food and drug administration, to decide based on science, not for the court to be secondguessing. it doesn't just impact, as it would significantly, abortion care, but all of approvals of drugs. that's why drug manufacturers, including pfizer filed a brief in the case saying you can't upend fda law in this way. i mean, the stakes are high for abortion, and the stakes are high for the rule of law and for science-based fda approval of drugs. >> yeah, for anybody who uses pharmaceuticals for any reason in this country, this is up for debate tomorrow if they're going to take away the ability of the fda to approve drugs in the normal course.

nancy northrop, president and ceo for the center for reproductive rights, we'll be listening carefully to tomorrow's argument. we'll be right back. stay with us. tomorrow's argument. we'll be right back. stay with us choose acid prevention. choose nexium. ah, these bills are crazy. she has no idea she's sitting on a goldmine. well she doesn't know that if she owns a life insurance policy of $100,000 or more she can sell all or part of it to coventry for cash. even a term policy. even a term policy? even a term policy! find out if you're sitting on a goldmine. call coventry direct today at the number on your screen, or visit coventrydirect.com. “look at all those snacks!” “i did just pay 60% less for my ticket with the gametime app.” “it's the best place to get last-minute deals on tickets.” “i guess i'm just a better fan than you.” “(crowd cheering)

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one last piece of very exciting news to leave you with tonight. i'm going to do a live event with joy, with joy reid, and you can come if you want to. my brilliant friend and colleague joy reid has an excellent new book out, instant "new york times" best seller. it's called "medgar & myrlie."

chronicles the lives of those two very important civil rights activists. saturday, april 6th, joy reid and i are going to do a live event about the book at the apollo theater in new york city. i'm so looking forward to this. if you want tickets, you can find out how to get them at msnbc.com/medgar and myrlie. the link right there on your screen. also i should tell you tomorrow i'll be on joy's show with her tomorrow at 7:00 p.m., the reidout." that does it for us for now. "way too early" with jonathan lemire is up next. do you ever accept money from a foreign government to pay your bonds or fines? >> no, i don't do that. i think you'd be allowed to possibly. i don't know. if you know borrow from a b